These friendships are also between superiors and inferiors, for which
reason parents are not merely loved but also honoured. The principle of
Justice also between these parties is not exactly the same but
according to proportiton, because so also is the Friendship.
Now between Husband and Wife there is the same Friendship as in
Aristocracy: for the relation is determined by relative excellence, and
the better person has the greater good and each has what befits: so too
also is the principle of Justice between them.
The Fraternal Friendship is like that of Companions, because brothers
are equal and much of an age, and such persons have generally like
feelings and like dispositions. Like to this also is the Friendship of
a Timocracy, because the citizens are intended to be equal and
equitable: rule, therefore, passes from hand to hand, and is
distributed on equal terms: so too is the Friendship accordingly.
In the deflections from the constitutional forms, just as the principle
of Justice is but small so is the Friendship also: and least of all in
the most perverted form: in Despotism there is little or no Friendship.
For generally wherever the ruler and the ruled have nothing in common
there is no Friendship because there is no Justice; but the case is as
between an artisan and his tool, or between soul and body, and master
and slave; all these are benefited by those who use them, but towards
things inanimate there is neither Friendship nor Justice: nor even
towards a horse or an ox, or a slave _quâ_ slave, because there is
nothing in common: a slave as such is an animate tool, a tool an
inanimate slave. _Quâ_ slave, then, there is no Friendship towards him,
only _quâ_ man: for it is thought that there is some principle of
Justice between every man, and every other who can share in law and be
a party to an agreement; and so somewhat of Friendship, in so far as he
is man. So in Despotisms the Friendships and the principle of Justice
are inconsiderable in extent, but in Democracies they are most
considerable because they who are equal have much in common.
Chapter XII.
Now of course all Friendship is based upon Communion, as has been
already stated: but one would be inclined to separate off from the rest
the Friendship of Kindred, and that of Companions: whereas those of men
of the same city, or tribe, or crew, and all such, are more peculiarly,
it would seem, based upon Communion, inasmuch as they plainly exist in
right of some agreement expressed or implied: among these one may rank
also the Friendship of Hospitality,